Some of the stranger features on Pluto remain tough to explain

Enlarge / Wright Mons, at center. Note the lumpy nature of its flanks extends to other nearby areas. (credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Institute)

When we look at the features on other bodies in our Solar System, there are often obvious analogs much closer to home. For example, sets of parallel ridges on Pluto appear to be the equivalent of snow features we call penitentes here on Earth. After all, a lot of geology is the product of physics, and if the same physics apply elsewhere, you can expect similar features.

But there are many times when the same physics don't apply, and that can leave scientists scratching their heads. One of those cases was described last week when researchers found that all the easy explanations for why some features have formed on Pluto don't actually work that well.

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The feature in question is called Wright Mons, a bit of elevated terrain named after the Wright Brothers. There's a similar feature nearby called Piccard Mons, and when the features were first seen in photographs sent back from New Horizons, scientists described them as cryovolcanoes. In terms of their shape, both looked a lot like volcanoes on Earth, with an elevated peak and a crater-like feature in the center.

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